(41) The prayer is answered by the mere fact that part and other part are wrought to one tone like a musical string which, plucked at one end, vibrates at the other also. Often, too, the sounding of one string awakens what might pass for a perception in another, the result of their being in harmony and tuned to one musical scale; now, if the vibration in a lyre affects another by virtue of the sympathy existing between them, then certainly in the All- even though it is constituted in contraries- there must be one melodic system; for it contains its unisons as well, and its entire content, even to those contraries, is a kinship.

Thus, too, whatever is hurtful to man- the passionate spirit, for example, drawn by the medium of the gall into the principle seated in the liver- comes with no intention of hurt; it is simply as one transferring fire to another might innocently burn him: no doubt, since he actually set the other on fire he is a cause, but only as the attacking fire itself is a cause, that is by the merely accidental fact that the person to whom the fire was being brought blundered in taking it.

(88) Timaeus: and is in a very passionate state, it shakes up the whole body from within and fills it with maladies; and whenever the soul ardently pursues some study or investigation, it wastes the body; and again, when the soul engages, in public or in private, in teachings and battles of words carried on with controversy and contention, it makes the body inflamed and shakes it to pieces, and induces catarrhs; and thereby it deceives the majority of so-called physicians and makes them ascribe the malady to the wrong cause. And, on the other hand, when a large and overbearing body is united to a small

(335) The members of the body are a burden to those who do not use them.

(39) The work of the cells in repairing a wound furnishes one of the most striking in illustrations of the presence of intelligence in the cells. When a portion of the body is wounded, it is found that the tissues, lymphatic and blood vessels, glands, muscles, nerves, and sometimes even the bone are severed. The alarm is sounded by the nervous system, and the repair-cells rush to the spot in great numbers. The flowing blood washes away the dirt and foreign substances—or at least endeavors to do so. Then the blood coagulates and forms a scab to protect the wound. By this time millions of blood cells have arrived on the scene, and the repair work begins at once. The cells display the most wonderful activity and intelligence in this work. The cells of the tissues, nerves, blood-vessels, etc., on each side of the wound begin to reproduce themselves very rapidly, and gradually form a bridge over the space between the two sides of the wound, bringing each side together. In this bridge work they display intelligence, purpose and system. The cells of the blood-vessels connect with the same kind of cells on the opposite side of the wound, forming new tubes through which the blood may flow. The cells of the connective tissues do likewise, and so do the cells of each of the other kinds of bodily substance. Then after the "inside work" is complete, new epidermis cells form a new skin over the healed wound. The above gives you but a passing glimpse of the wonderful intelligent work of the cells in performing their offices in the body—what has not been told is equally as wonderful. To all intents and purposes the cells of the body are like the individual bees in the hive, i.e., intelligent, independent living creatures working together for the common good.

(88) Timaeus: is inflamed or chilled within by the particles that enter it, and again is dried or moistened by those without, and suffers the affections consequent on both these motions, whenever a man delivers his body, in a state of rest, to these motions, it is overpowered and utterly perishes; whereas if a man imitates that which we have called the nurturer and nurse of the Universe, and never, if possible, allows the body to be at rest but keeps it moving, and by continually producing internal vibrations defends it in nature's way against the inward and outward motions, and by means of moderate vibrations

(18) There remains the question whether the body possesses any force of its own- so that, with the incoming of the soul, it lives in some individuality- or whether all it has is this Nature we have been speaking of, the superior principle which enters into relations with it.

Certainly the body, container of soul and of nature, cannot even in itself be as a soulless form would be: it cannot even be like air traversed by light; it must be like air storing heat: the body holding animal or vegetive life must hold also some shadow of soul; and it is body thus modified that is the seat of corporeal pains and pleasures which appear before us, the true human being, in such a way as to produce knowledge without emotion. By "us, the true human being" I mean the higher soul for, in spite of all, the modified body is not alien but attached to our nature and is a concern to us for that reason: "attached," for this is not ourselves nor yet are we free of it; it is an accessory and dependent of the human being; "we" means the master-principle; the conjoint, similarly is in its own way an "ours"; and it is because of this that we care for its pain and pleasure, in proportion as we are weak rather than strong, gripped rather than working towards detachment.

The other, the most honourable phase of our being, is what we think of as the true man and into this we are penetrating.

Pleasure and pain and the like must not be attributed to the soul alone, but to the modified body and to something intermediary between soul and body and made up of both. A unity is independent: thus body alone, a lifeless thing, can suffer no hurt- in its dissolution there is no damage to the body, but merely to its unity- and soul in similar isolation cannot even suffer dissolution, and by its very nature is immune from evil.

But when two distinct things become one in an artificial unity, there is a probable source of pain to them in the mere fact that they were inapt to partnership. This does not, of course, refer to two bodies; that is a question of one nature; and I am speaking of two natures. When one distinct nature seeks to associate itself with another, a different, order of being- the lower participating in the higher, but unable to take more than a faint trace of it- then the essential duality becomes also a unity, but a unity standing midway between what the lower was and what it cannot absorb, and therefore a troubled unity; the association is artificial and uncertain, inclining now to this side and now to that in ceaseless vacillation; and the total hovers between high and low, telling, downward bent, of misery but, directed to the above, of longing for unison.

(81) Timaeus: and of the whole body, each part drawing therefrom supplies of fluid and filling up the room of the evacuated matter. And the processes of filling and evacuating take place just as the motion of everything in the Universe takes place, namely, according to the law that every kindred substance moves towards its kind. For the bodies which surround us without are always dissolving us and sending off and distributing to each species of substance what is akin thereto; while the blood-particles, again, being minced up within us and surrounded by the structure of each creature as by a Heaven, are compelled to copy the motion of the whole;

(4) But if this is the true account of the unity of soul, we must be able to meet the problems that ensue: firstly, the difficulty of one thing being present at the same moment in all things; and, secondly, the difficulty of soul in body as against soul not embodied.

We might be led to think that all soul must always inhabit body; this would seem especially plausible in the case of the soul of the universe, not thought of as ever leaving its body as the human soul does: there exists, no doubt, an opinion that even the human soul, while it must leave the body, cannot become an utterly disembodied thing; but assuming its complete disembodiment, how comes it that the human soul can go free of the body but the All-Soul not, though they are one and the same?

There is no such difficulty in the case of the Intellectual-Principle; by the primal differentiation, this separates, no doubt, into partial things of widely varying nature, but eternal unity is secured by virtue of the eternal identity of that Essence: it is not so easy to explain how, in the case of the soul described as separate among bodies, such differentiated souls can remain one thing.

A possible solution may be offered:

The unit soul holds aloof, not actually falling into body; the differentiated souls- the All-Soul, with the others- issue from the unity while still constituting, within certain limits, an association. They are one soul by the fact that they do not belong unreservedly to any particular being; they meet, so to speak, fringe to fringe; they strike out here and there, but are held together at the source much as light is a divided thing upon earth, shining in this house, and that, and yet remains uninterruptedly one identical substance.

The All-Soul would always remain above, since essentially it has nothing to do with descent or with the lower, or with any tendency towards this sphere: the other souls would become ours because their lot is cast for this sphere, and because they are solicited by a thing which invites their care.

The one- the lowest soul in the to the All-Soul- would correspond to that in some great growth, silently, unlaboriously conducting the whole; our own lowest soul might be compared to the insect life in some rotted part of the growth- for this is the ratio of the animated body to the universe- while the other soul in us, of one ideal nature with the higher parts of the All-Soul, may be imaged as the gardener concerned about the insects lodged in the tree and anxiously working to amend what is wrong; or we may contrast a healthy man living with the healthy and, by his thought or by his act, lending himself to the service of those about him, with, on the other side, a sick man intent upon his own care and cure, and so living for the body, body-bound.

(3) This same subjection of the body to the spirit may be in manner verily conceived in the proof of this ghostly work of this book, by them that work therein. For what time that a soul disposeth him effectually to this work, then as fast suddenly, unwitting himself that worketh, the body that peradventure before ere he began was somewhat bent downwards, on one side or on other for ease of the flesh, by virtue of the spirit shall set it upright: following in manner and in likeness bodily the work of the spirit that is made ghostly. And thus it is most seemly to be.

(32) If we can trace neither to material agencies nor to any deliberate intention the influences from without which reach to us and to the other forms of life and to the terrestrial in general, what cause satisfactory to reason remains?

The secret is: firstly, that this All is one universally comprehensive living being, encircling all the living beings within it, and having a soul, one soul, which extends to all its members in the degree of participant membership held by each; secondly, that every separate thing is an integral part of this All by belonging to the total material fabric- unrestrictedly a part by bodily membership, while, in so far as it has also some participation in the All. Soul, it possesses in that degree spiritual membership as well, perfect where participation is in the All-Soul alone, partial where there is also a union with a lower soul.

But, with all this gradation, each several thing is affected by all else in virtue of the common participation in the All, and to the degree of its own participation.

This One-All, therefore, is a sympathetic total and stands as one living being; the far is near; it happens as in one animal with its separate parts: talon, horn, finger, and any other member are not continuous and yet are effectively near; intermediate parts feel nothing, but at a distant point the local experience is known. Correspondent things not side by side but separated by others placed between, the sharing of experience by dint of like condition- this is enough to ensure that the action of any distant member be transmitted to its distant fellow. Where all is a living thing summing to a unity there is nothing so remote in point of place as not to be near by virtue of a nature which makes of the one living being a sympathetic organism.

Where there is similarity between a thing affected and the thing affecting it, the affection is not alien; where the affecting cause is dissimilar the affection is alien and unpleasant.

Such hurtful action of member upon member within one living being need not seem surprising: within ourselves, in our own activities, one constituent can be harmed by another; bile and animal spirit seem to press and goad other members of the human total: in the vegetal realm one part hurts another by sucking the moisture from it. And in the All there is something analogous to bile and animal spirit, as to other such constituents. For visibly it is not merely one living organism; it is also a manifold. In virtue of the unity the individual is preserved by the All: in virtue of the multiplicity of things having various contacts, difference often brings about mutual hurt; one thing, seeking its own need, is detrimental to another; what is at once related and different is seized as food; each thing, following its own natural path, wrenches from something else what is serviceable to itself, and destroys or checks in its own interest whatever is becoming a menace to it: each, occupied with its peculiar function, assists no doubt anything able to profit by that, but harms or destroys what is too weak to withstand the onslaught of its action, like fire withering things round it or greater animals in their march thrusting aside or trampling under foot the smaller.

The rise of all these forms of being and their modification, whether to their loss or gain, all goes to the fulfillment of the natural unhindered life of that one living being: for it was not possible for the single thing to be as if it stood alone; the final purpose could not serve to that only end, intent upon the partial: the concern must be for the whole to which each item is member: things are different both from each other and in their own stages, therefore cannot be complete in one unchanging form of life; nor could anything remain utterly without modification if the All is to be durable; for the permanence of an All demands varying forms.

(34) For ourselves, while whatever in us belongs to the body of the All should be yielded to its action, we ought to make sure that we submit only within limits, realizing that the entire man is not thus bound to it: intelligent servitors yield a part of themselves to their masters but in part retain their personality, and are thus less absolutely at beck and call, as not being slaves, not utterly chattels.

The changing configurations within the All could not fail to be produced as they are, since the moving bodies are not of equal speed.

Now the movement is guided by a Reason-Principle; the relations of the living whole are altered in consequence; here in our own realm all that happens reacts in sympathy to the events of that higher sphere: it becomes, therefore, advisable to ask whether we are to think of this realm as following upon the higher by agreement, or to attribute to the configurations the powers underlying the events, and whether such powers would be vested in the configurations simply or in the relations of the particular items.

It will be said that one position of one given thing has by no means an identical effect- whether of indication or of causation- in its relation to another and still less to any group of others, since each several being seems to have a natural tendency of its own.

The truth is that the configuration of any given group means merely the relationship of the several parts, and, changing the members, the relationship remains the same.

But, this being so, the power will belong, not to the positions but to the beings holding those positions?

To both taken together. For as things change their relations, and as any one thing changes place, there is a change of power.

But what power? That of causation or of indication?

To this double thing- the particular configuration of particular beings- there accrues often the twofold power, that of causation and that of indication, but sometimes only that of indication. Thus we are obliged to attribute powers both to the configuration and to the beings entering into them. In mime dancers each of the hands has its own power, and so with all the limbs; the relative positions have much power; and, for a third power, there is that of the accessories and concomitants; underlying the action of the performers' limbs, there are such items as the clutched fingers and the muscles and veins following suit.

(3) See by ensample. He that is thy deadly enemy, an thou hear him so afraid that he cry in the height of his spirit this little word “fire,” or this word “out”; yet without any beholding to him for he is thine enemy, but for pure pity in thine heart stirred and raised with the dolefulness of this cry, thou risest up—yea, though it be about midwinter’s night—and helpest him to slack his fire, or for to still him and rest him in his distress. Oh, Lord! since a man may be made so merciful in grace, to have so much mercy and so much pity of his enemy, notwithstanding his enmity, what pity and what mercy shall God have then of a ghostly cry in soul, made and wrought in the height and the deepness, the length and the breadth of his spirit; the which hath all by nature that man hath by grace? And much more, surely without comparison, much more mercy will He have; since it is, that that thing that is so had by nature is nearer to an eternal thing than that which is had by grace.

(1) After the body of the universe, also, many things are generated by the nature of it. For the concord of similars, and the contrariety of dissimilars, effect not a few things. Farther still, the assemblage of many things into the one animal of the universe, and the powers in the world, whatever the number and quality of them may be, effect, in short, one thing in wholes and another in parts, on account of the divided imbecility of parts. Thus, for instance, the friendship, love, and contention which subsist in energy in the universe, become passions in the partial natures by which they are participated. Those things, likewise, that are preestablished in forms and pure reasons in the nature of wholes, participate of a certain material indigence, and privation of morphe , in things which subsist according to a part. And things which are conjoined to each other in wholes are separated in parts. Hence partible natures, which participate of wholes in conjunction with matter, degenerate from them in all things, and also from what is beautiful and perfect. But some parts are corrupted, in order that wholes may be preserved in a condition conformable to nature. Sometimes, likewise, parts are compressed and weighed down, though at the same time wholes remain impassive to a molestation of this kind.

(45) From this discussion it becomes perfectly clear that the individual member of the All contributes to that All in the degree of its kind and condition; thus it acts and is acted upon. In any particular animal each of the limbs and organs, in the measure of its kind and purpose, aids the entire being by service performed and counts in rank and utility: it gives what is in it its gift and takes from its fellows in the degree of receptive power belonging to its kind; there is something like a common sensitiveness linking the parts, and in the orders in which each of the parts is also animate, each will have, in addition to its rank as part, the very particular functions of a living being.

We have learned, further, something of our human standing; we know that we too accomplish within the All a work not confined to the activity and receptivity of body in relation to body; we know that we bring to it that higher nature of ours, linked as we are by affinities within us towards the answering affinities outside us; becoming by our soul and the conditions of our kind thus linked- or, better, being linked by Nature- with our next highest in the celestial or demonic realm, and thence onwards with those above the Celestials, we cannot fail to manifest our quality. Still, we are not all able to offer the same gifts or to accept identically: if we do not possess good, we cannot bestow it; nor can we ever purvey any good thing to one that has no power of receiving good. Anyone that adds his evil to the total of things is known for what he is and, in accordance with his kind, is pressed down into the evil which he has made his own, and hence, upon death, goes to whatever region fits his quality- and all this happens under the pull of natural forces.

For the good man, the giving and the taking and the changes of state go quite the other way; the particular tendencies of the nature, we may put it, transpose the cords .

Thus this universe of ours is a wonder of power and wisdom, everything by a noiseless road coming to pass according to a law which none may elude- which the base man never conceives though it is leading him, all unknowingly, to that place in the All where his lot must be cast- which the just man knows, and, knowing, sets out to the place he must, understanding, even as he begins the journey, where he is to be housed at the end, and having the good hope that he will be with gods.

In a living being of small scope the parts vary but slightly, and have but a faint individual consciousness, and, unless possibly in a few and for a short time, are not themselves alive. But in a living universe, of high expanse, where every entity has vast scope and many of the members have life, there must be wider movement and greater changes. We see the sun and the moon and the other stars shifting place and course in an ordered progression. It is therefore within reason that the souls, also, of the All should have their changes, not retaining unbrokenly the same quality, but ranged in some analogy with their action and experience- some taking rank as head and some as foot in a disposition consonant with the Universal Being which has its degrees in better and less good. A soul, which neither chooses the highest that is here, nor has lent itself to the lowest, is one which has abandoned another, a purer, place, taking this sphere in free election.

The punishments of wrong-doing are like the treatment of diseased parts of the body- here, medicines to knit sundered flesh; there, amputations; elsewhere, change of environment and condition- and the penalties are planned to bring health to the All by settling every member in the fitting place: and this health of the All requires that one man be made over anew and another, sick here, be taken hence to where he shall be weakly no longer.

(54) Are better than exile from God and neglect of Him; For the former pass away, but the latter abide; He is happy who carries a wary heart before God." Each of our members testifies to God's bounties towards us. Inquire now, I pray, of each one of your members; Inquire the detail of the bounties of the All-sustainer, Day and night you are eagerly asking for news, Since each member of your body issued from Not-being, How much pleasure has it seen, and how much pain? For no member grows and flourishes without pleasure,

(84) Timaeus: and withdraws from the bones; while the flesh falls away with it from the roots and leaves the sinews bare and full of saline matter, and by falling back itself into the stream of the blood it augments the maladies previously described. But although these bodily ailments are severe, still more grave are those which precede them, whenever the bone by reason of the density of the flesh fails to receive sufficient inspiration, and becoming heated because of its moldiness decays and does not admit its nutriment, but, on the contrary, falls back itself,